Wednesday, August 15, 2007

A Technical Question

There seem to be a lot of technical people reading, so I have a question to pose to you.

My TV does not like to change channels anymore.

I have a Tivo hooked up to my cable box. Generally speaking, when I change the channel with the Tivo remote, it only works 1 in roughly 10 times. The cable remote also only works about 1 in 10 times as well. The numbers on the cable box change, but the actual channel does not (the numbers come up on the TV as well).

However, if I go to the cable guide (not the Tivo guide) and highlight and select the channel there, it changes fine.

I have pulled and reattached all the cables, but that has not helped. Can anyone give me any advice on what I could do to alleviate this? Should I switch the cables out? Do I need a new TV? Should I sacrifice a chicken?

5 comments:

TiVo boxes are notoriously bad for channel changing. This is not the first time I've heard of a TiVo going wrong, and I guarantee you it won't be the last.

The problem is NOT with your television. The problem is with the translation of data from your cable box to your television. Meaning, the problem is somewhere in between those two points.

Simply put, the problem is with the TiVo box itself.

I hate to say this, but a friend of mine had a similar problem, and for all of my prodding, cable switching, component examinations, and other technical work, I couldn't come up with a solution. Your chicken sacrificing idea COULD work, but if it doesn't, all you'll do is make an awful mess of things, end a poor chicken's life without deep frying it, and quite possibly get blood on your carpet (which, believe you me, is a very difficult stain to deal with).

Honestly, you probably need a new TiVo box. Is it under warrantee?

At least that's my opinion, someone else could do better. For your sake, I hope they do.

I have had this problem a couple of times in the past. The first time it was as simple as re-adjusting the IR emitters in front of the cable box and then covering that spot (to reduce conflicting signals). I later switched to the serial cable for channel changing. eventually had the same problem, but this time it was just covering the cable box IR port.